Spelt Burger Buns

Making home made burger buns is not something you see the average person doing every day. The idea came to me when my sister and I, made the irrational decision to invite a countless amount of people to a barbecue one Sunday night, not realising that although a barbecue is the ultimate chilled scenario, the hosts of a barbecue are not necessarily so 'chilled'. Readers, remember this next time you dare to host one of these...

We later realised that to have a barbecue, you need to light the barbecue. Two hungover Jewish girls and an unlit barbecue is not a good combination. We even later realised, to have a barbecue, you need food. In our initial panic, we decided to settle on making everyone pasta, the only barbecue aspect of the evening to come, being paper plates and a semi lit (yet empty barbecue). We knew our American mother would be disappointed and ventured out to find some hot dogs.

After finding the hotdogs and defrosting the ingredients for burgers, we realised we had no buns and let's be honest, carb-police aside, a hot dog or burger without the bun, sucks.

I'm sure you can guess the end of the story. I thought to myself, 'we've come this far', and made my first attempt at home-made burger buns, assuming the whole time that this would only end in tears (of exhaustion).

Needless to say, they turned out better than I had thought (or I wouldn't be doing this post)! I've made them three times since and refuse to have floppy, crumbling, white burger buns at home ever again!

These were honestly the easiest things to make and pretty quick too! You can make them a few days in advance or even make them fresh while the barbecue is heating up!

Baked Eggs in Spicy Crunchy Pasta

 A wise woman once said, "If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it". Well no disrespect B, but I say "If you like it then you shoulda put an egg on it". Call me cliche but those are some wise words".

We have all experienced that indecisive moment where we go out for a meal on a Sunday and can't decide between breakfast or lunch. Well here's your solution: combine the two! When someone asks me the 'If you could bring one thing with you to a desert island' question, pasta is often my choice item but even I have a problem making such a cut throat decision on a groggy Sunday.

To me, this is the perfect brunch.

Oven Baked Fries

With Summer quickly approaching we are also approaching the annual dilemma that comes with the perks of Summer. So little space in our shorts and so many calories to intake! Of course, it's much easier to fill up on fro yo and salads because there's one less thing to worry about, (I really believe in in S.A.D and I really have it!) but when one of the main activities of the season is attending barbecues there's not much you can do about the extra calories sneaking onto your plate.

When it's your turn to host, try these french fries and shock your friends when they find out they're not fried! (You'll be named BBQ host of the season)!

Striped Marinated Zucchini Carpaccio

 I've been experimenting a lot lately and have been craving to make some kind of vegetable carpaccio. At first, I wanted to do this with eggplant but it was seriously hard to cut thinly. I can't tell you how many eggplants I wasted on trying to make this!

I've never really been a fan of the zucchini but had them lying around and decided to try them out. It somehow made perfect sense once I started and it came out perfectly.

This is such an easy recipe you can get done quickly before you start cooking the rest of your meal and it's amazing as a starter or as a side. There's also minimal washing up to do so that's a plus too!

I was going to call the dish zebra carpaccio but clearly that would get a little confusing and to some people, offensive!

Giant Stuffed Pasta Shells

Obviously anything pasta,  and anything stuffed (especially stuffed with minced meat) is going to be a winner so I thought why not mix the two. Although it's a pretty common thing to eat, I had actually never tried this dish before, and it was served along with many other dishes for a dinner party I had last week (something I do a lot now to prevent wasting food), so it was just as much a surprise for me as it was for anyone else. I had to put the cherry on top of the cake and make the pasta shells crunchy.

These are almost-bite-size treats (depending on whose eating), that can be eaten as finger food, starters, or if you have enough, a whole meal.

I guess you could say this dish is a combination of my dedication to Middle Eastern food and my love for Italian food.

French Apple Tart

Everyone has those restaurants that they could go to every single day of the year and not get bored. Mine is La Petite Maison. If you haven't been there, go there. Anything and everything you eat there is the best thing you've ever eaten and you'll never forget it.

As I've said before, I'm really not much of a dessert person, and I know some readers aren't too happy about that. There is one dessert, however, that I can't resist making and it's my attempt at the closest thing to La Petite Maison's Apple Tart. I have to admit, theirs still easily takes the prize but mine is pretty delicious too!

I got myself into a sticky situation on Friday night where my elegant dinner party of 10 slowly crept up to 17 and I had to cut the tart into 16 pieces (I sacrificed my piece), calling it a sample bite! Next time I'll have to make a bigger one...

Sauteed Kale 'Caesar' Salad with Crunchy Conchiglie Croutons

If a food could ever be considered 'in' it's kale. It's so trendy at the moment. Like Instagram or wedged sneakers, no one really knows why, but that's what's cool. This is one of the reasons I haven't posted any thing kale related yet. I wasn't sure I could pull it off, or if I was quite cool enough. 

Jokes aside, I do know why kale is so topical at the moment. Because, it's really just very good. If you haven't had it, I'd describe it as a mix between spinach and broccoli because its like a leaf but it doesn't get all soft and soggy as soon as it get's near any heat. It's perfect for salads instead of lettuce because it's such a good source of fibre and protein. Enough info though, I'm sure you know all about it since it's so cool at the moment. 

This dish is the perfect combination of healthy and satisfied. It's essentially a salad but every so often you get a 'refreshing' bite of crispy pasta, so there's no complaining about an empty stomach later on. 

A kale caesar salad is one of the most popular things to make with kale, as well as kale chips (which my sister www.beautyandsomebeef.com does really well). I decided to go with my own little twist on a kale caesar. It's way less calories and slightly sautéing the kale removes the slightly bitter taste it can sometimes have.